Engineering Students Take Top Honors

Biological and Irrigation Engineering students from Utah State University took the top awards at the annual conference of the Institute of Biological Engineering recently in Santa Clara, Calif. The BIE students were awarded five out of the nine awards presented. They received awards in the areas of Undergraduate Poster Competition, Graduate Student Poster Competition and the National Bioethics Essay Competition.

Eight faculty members and 16 BIE-supported students participated in the event. There were 200 attendees from more than 40 national and international organizations participating. This included universities, private industry and national government units through platform and poster presentations as well as plenary sessions.

 

Student Sarah Bailey and faculty members Sridhar Viamajala and Ronald Sims won 2nd place in the Undergraduate Student Poster Competition for their poster titled “Strategies for Nutrient Removal from Municipal Wastewater and Biodiesel Production through Controlled Algae Growth.” Students Eric Monson, Andrew Vanderwerf and Jessie Trujillo and faculty member Anthony Tores won 3rd place for their poster “Novel Copy Number Variation (CNV) Detection Methodology for Complement Genes C4A and C4B Utilizing SYBR Green Dye Chemistry.”

 

Graduate student Trent Mortensen and faculty members Charles Miller and Ronald Sims won 3rd place in the Graduate Student Poster Competition for “Inhibitory Effectiveness of St.-Johns-Wort-Derived Compounds Against Mycobacterial Isolates.” Students Elisabeth Linton and Trent Mortensen and faculty members Ronald Sims, H. Scott Hinton and Charles Miller won 1st place for “Efficient Systems for Monitoring and Recovering Polyhydroxyalkanoates.”

 

Student Kirsten Sims won 3rd place in the National Bioethics Essay Contest for her essay “Need for a National Code of Ethics for the Biological Engineering Community.” There were 184 essays submitted.

 

The department recognizes financial support from the Graduate Student Senate, the office of the Vice President for Research, individual faculty advisors and mentors.

 

 

Writer: Jessica Wakley (435) 797-1350, jess.wak@aggiemail.usu.edu
Contact: Jennifer Carroll (435) 797-8123, Jennifer@engineering.usu.edu